implications

[ljgeoff]

Scientists selectively removed a shocking memory from a mouse's brain. Although the lead scientist Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, Professor of Neurology and Co-Director of the Brain Discovery Institute, Medical College of Georgia talks about the implications for medical therapy, he is also listed on the website of the 26th Army Science Conference, whose motto

Comments

[anansi133]

First response- Yuck! This hits so many gross-out buttons at once, it's hard to even look at it straight.

On the other hand... I can be happy such research is being published where everyone can see it, because you just *know* there's even more scary stuff we're not being told about.

If the threat can be talked about, then someday people might seriously consider what civil defense against mind control technologies might feel like. I believe those countermeasures would feel like home, more authentically than any sort of manipulation the other guys can invent.

What popped into my head when I read the article:

[julia_reynolds]

This would be great therapy for victims of terrible crimes.

But, if you erase the damage of a heinous crime, wouldn't the world have even less motivation to deter brutality, like what is going on in the Congo now? Would they just send a U.N. guy with a memory zapper to the refugee camps in Darfur, remove some traumatic memories, and call it "Case Closed?"

What if someone committed a horrible act, felt overwhelming guilt and so had the memory of their action redacted? They wouldn't remember committing the crime and so would proclaim themselves innocent if prosecuted. After the memory of the act was removed any sort of expressed penitence would be insincere, to say the least.